For years, I’ve been throwing things into our pantry without a 2nd thought. There were days when I felt that we didn’t have anything to eat. And I would end up buying the same things maybe 4 to 5 times, not realizing that I’ve already had it in stock. I also had an issue with wanting to use something to prepare dinner, only to find out that it expired TWO YEARS AGO! (slaps face)

So one day, I was fed up with trying to create a grocery list that I just decided to start going through everything we had. I know that I’m not alone in this. I have the best of intentions to stay organized, but it just doesn’t happen the way I’d like or something comes up that takes me away from this task.

Below are photos of our “before” pantry look. When we built our home, I had high hopes of making sure that once we moved in, we be good stewards of what God blessed us with. Once we moved in, life happened.

My plan was to switch out the shelving to have wooden shelves installed. That never happened, of course. I decided to work with what I have. No need in making changes to something that isn’t broken, right?

So first, I had to realize that the purpose of keeping an organized pantry is to save money, time and food. It gives you an idea before going out to shop for more food, of what you already have in stock. That keeps you from over spending.

So my bestie, Myria over at Dinkins Everyday Life, and I headed over to IKEA to get started. We tried so hard to get everything we needed (but who can actually go to IKEA and not pick up EVERYTHING?!) She was a first time IKEA shopper. It took us hours but we made it through. Lol

We literally went through every section to see exactly what we needed. The last thing we wanted was to buy things we knew wouldn’t use. So we started big for storage solution and worked our way down to smaller items.

So once we returned to our homes, we started to clear out our pantry. Boy oh boy! It was so much stuff.

It took me almost a week to get our entire kitchen organized. But it was so worth this small family project because we were able to explain to the kids what our expectations were as to how to keep this up. And now that we were able to clear it all out, we were able to get a clear vision of what we needed for meal planning. We recently put ourselves on a weekly budge for food and this so helps me and my mind.

Here are a few more photos of our finished pantry and kitchen.

I think we did a good job because Mr. Nesbitt was all up in this with helping me maintain a cleaner kitchen. Thank you Husband!

Okay, can we all stop and scream right here? #happydance WHAT. A. DIFFERENCE! 👏 I love a clutter free home!

Well, we hope you loved our story on how we were able to tackle this beast. We have so much more to share. I’m hoping to share my next Aldi grocery haul with you. Stay tuned and have a great weekend!